Exhibition of Dolls at Azadi Tower

The iconic Azadi Tower in southwest Tehran will host “Dolls Through Time,” an exhibition of traditional dolls.

According to the head of Iran’s branch of the International Council of Museums, Seyyed Ahmad Mohit-Tabatabaei, the dolls have been collected from local museums and institutions including the Toy Museum of Kashan, Cinema Museum of Tehran, Museum of Iranian Dolls and Culture in Tehran, as well as Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.

Some of the dolls are almost 150 years old, Mohit-Tabatabaei said. The exhibit will open on May 24 for one week,  Chtn.ir reported on its Persian website.

“Some of the dolls are unique in that their faces have been painted by Hossein Qollar-Aqasi (1902-1966),” Mohit-Tabatabaei added.

Qollar-Aqasi was one of the first coffee-house painters, who created  canvas works and mural frescoes based on religious traditions and national epics.

Coffee-house painting is an Iranian narrative painting style with epical, religious and festive themes emerging in early 1900s on the basis of Iranian folklore art traditions. Coffee-house painting is a special genre of Persian folk art, showing affinity with Persian miniature painting.

Beside Iranian dolls visitors will see some rarely displayed dolls (mostly puppets and masks) purchased from other countries.